Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is being developed into a new era, with more load capability, longer cruising range (hours), but less cost. It is an ideal air-based platform to install compact airborne system and perform special missions, such as flight inspection of navaids. With the unique features of cost-effective, lower airport criteria, fast modification, modular deployment and etc., the UAV-Based Flight Inspection System (UFIS) is a good option to achieve routine inspection work in the general aviation airports or work as the supplement of conventional flight inspection aircraft.

This paper presents a UFIS prototype installed on a fixed-wing UAV. This prototype contains flight inspection sensor, airborne processing unit, air-ground data link unit, positioning module, antennas and the control unit. On the ground, the supporting platform contains an RTK station, a data link unit, a flight inspection processing unit and a UAV tracking, a telemetering and command (TT&C) vehicle. A series of demonstration flights will be completed in China by this year, which will be promising to validate the feasibility of UFIS concept and the performance of UFIS to inspect ILS, VOR, DME etc.